TBT: When the American Wrestling Association Ruled Sioux Falls

WWE Smackdown Live is coming to Sioux Falls next Tuesday, but back in the 1970s/1980s it was the American Wrestling Association that ran in town.

This is way before my time, of course, but the roster that the AWA had during that time was super strong. The likes of Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, Larry Zbyszko, Stan Hanson, Rick Martel, Curt Hennig, and more. AWA was based out of Minneapolis and consistently ran in the Sioux Falls market. Their show "All Star Wrestling" was a syndicated television show.

I recently stumbled upon a poster that promoted one show to take place at the Sioux Falls Arena.

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Now there are many misspelled names on that poster, but what leads me to believe that it is indeed real is the Lewis advertisement on the bottom. Wrestlingdata does not show a card in Sioux Falls with those matches on it, however the show would have had to take place on May 8, 1986. That was a Thursday night, and Stan Hanson was in the middle of his AWA Heavyweight Championship run.

The use of All Star Wrestling as the title was to get people to attend a house show. This wasn't a televised event, as the All Star Wrestling shows were taped in Las Vegas.

So even though I haven't found the actual details of the card, it's still a pretty cool piece of history to look back on. The closest show card that I found for Sioux Falls was on 4/3/1986 in which the main event featured a 15 man battle royal.